Apparently, how long I could wait after moving before getting a cat
was -6 days.
I really hadn't meant to actually bring home a cat today...I knew that
the pet stores around here that sell shelter cats will hold them for
you, but didn't realize that the shelter wouldn't. My thinking had been,
if we find a cat we like, we'll ask them to hold it till next Sunday. We
went to the pet stores and didn't see any cats that really struck us as
ours, although we did order Laurel's aquarium and buy supplies for it
(very exciting for her, I think - I promised her an aquarium after we
moved way back last spring, we've been talking about it all summer, and
she's been saving her allowance to buy the fish). We also went to the
storefront shop that the shelter has, that just has cats. Then we went
to the shelter and went all the way to the back before finding a cat
(kitten) that seemed interested in us. We knew we had a winner when we
pulled her out and put her on Laurel's lap and she licked Laurel's face.
Every other cat we'd played with had been leery of the chair and not
that interested in Laurel. Laurel indicated that she liked the kitten,
too. But then when we went up with the volunteer who'd been helping us
(who had taken a real interest in Laurel, as she had cerebral palsy as
well - much milder, of course), we were told that under no circumstances
could they hold a cat. "If it's gone, we have lots of other
ones." "But we wanted THAT one..." We really had
not planned on taking on a new cat just as we were getting ready to
move, so we left, but driving home, I think we both felt like we'd lost
another cat. We finally decided we'd find a way to work it out, and I
went back up to get the kitty, stopping on my way to pick up food and
litter.
When I got there and said I'd come back for "Peabody," they
told me that Peabody's foster mom wanted to meet the potential adopter.
They called her and I had to wait about 20 minutes for her to drive in,
meanwhile filling out a sheet that asked me questions like, "What
would you do if you got home and your cat had litter problems?" She
got there, we talked for awhile, she clearly decided I was OK, but then
we went back to talk to "Peabody" and it was a different
Peabody! Turned out they had two cats with the same name. I felt really
bad that this gal had gotten dragged in there for nothing! But then
again, you'd think the shelter would have checked. It did clear up why
she said Peabody was a boy, when I thought I'd seen that she was a girl.
Although it does seem like more of a boy's name...but we kind of like it
and we hate naming cats, so she'll probably remain Peabody. Anyway, this
is Peabody:
Peabody really does seem to like Laurel:
Although she thinks Laurel's pump is pretty interesting, too:
She's been on my shoulder, my back or my lap the whole time I've been
downloading pictures/editing pictures/typing this. It's good to have a
cat again! 
Writing from the flip side...
Yesterday was Moving Day, so we, our furniture, and 100+ boxes are in
the new house. I'd taken a couple of pictures of the chaos, but I can't
get the $#%&*! computer to recognize the camera. We've had our share
of excitement along the way, for sure - worst thing was Friday, when Bob
had just left with the van (but not the cell phone) to take a load of
stuff to the new house, I was waiting for some folks from our church who
were going to help me pack who were due imminently, and the school
called. They said that Laurel was coughing so hard she was turning blue,
and we needed to come get her. While I was on the phone, the first
couple of packers showed up, so I gave them some instructions, and then
because I wasn't sure whether Bob had something he wanted to do at the
new house or if he was turning around and coming right back, I drove off
to find him. I caught up with him at the intersection of the road the
new house is on with the main road into town and sent him off. Then the
school called again and said Laurel had turned blue five times now and
we'd better get her seen by a doctor immediately. One of the doctors at
the pediatric practice Laurel goes to was able to see her right away,
but wouldn't you know, he couldn't see anything major wrong. He thought
she just had a cold. As near as we can tell, that's true, and we've not
seen any instances of her turning blue ourselves. But what an exciting
way to start our moving adventure, and of course that meant she was home
all day Friday, which was supposed to be our big packing day. I had to
give up the ghost about 1:30 AM because my back was so sore I could
barely move, but Bob didn't make it to bed till nearly 3. He killed
himself again yesterday; we'd hired some movers but they had to leave
before the truck was all unpacked, and he had to finish it himself. I
can't do nearly as much, but I've still done enough to put my back into
a world of hurt. (I think it's just muscular, though.) Only ninety boxes
to go... 
I'm starting to do a bit better...
I'm still in pain, and there are still so many boxes, but both the pain and the boxes are less. The house is starting to come together in places, which is helping me to see what it'll be like, which is good. Laurel seems to be just having a mild cold - she went to school yesterday and today, and it sounds like she had an OK day yesterday. So, slogging onward...I'm feeling hopeful that by our respite weekend a week and a half from now (I figured we'd need one when this was over - and that's feeling like a really good call...), we'll be pretty much done with living in the middle of canyons of boxes.
Fun with plumbing (kinda gross)...
And it's a sign of how crazy things have been that I started typing
this Sunday and am just now finishing it. We're down to about two dozen
boxes, though. Anyway...
Thursday night it was raining pretty hard here and I noticed that the
toilet didn't flush all that well, but I have little faith in these
new-fangled low-flow toilets 
and I didn't think that much of it. But then Bob noticed the sink wasn't
draining at all. Come to realize, nothing is flushing or draining. We
debated going to a hotel, but it was late, Laurel was tired and had had
a bad evening, and we decided that we would just head elsewhere if a
need for #2 struck and take our showers at the old house in the morning.
Wouldn't you know it, nature called Bob just as he was getting Laurel's
feeding ready in the morning, and he had to rush out to a gas station
(nearest one is 5-6 miles away) and I needed to get up and feed her. Me,
I managed to hold out till I got to the old house. It was SO weird
walking in there with my clothes and towels in a pile, like I was a
guest, but yet, this is MY bathroom that I've taken thousands of showers
in. Speaking of the weirdness of our old house without our stuff, we've
gone back several times for various reasons, a couple of them with
Laurel, and I've explained to her that it's weird and kind of sad
without our stuff in there but she can go in if she wants, and she's
always chosen to wait outside. Which unfortunately got her about eight
mosquito bites the other day. 
That is one thing I will not miss AT ALL about that yard - it's one of
the most mosquito-ridden places I've ever been in. I have to admit I
hadn't really been thinking about that part, I was just trying to be
respectful of Laurel's feelings.
Anyway, the upshot of this story is, Bob got the builder's septic people
out to look at things, and they found out that the power company had
severed the line from the house out to the septic tank! Just completely
sliced through it when they were laying their line, and banged the ends
up so badly that there was no way anything was going to make it from the
one part of the pipe to the other. The um, solids we had put down there
had all just piled up, and my guess is that the liquids had been soaking
into the ground until we got all that rain. Then everything just
stopped. The builder's people got us fixed back up, and everything's
been working fine since. Of course they were hopping mad at the power
company, and so am I - they're going to try to get the power company to
pay for it, and I hope they succeed! We are lucky that we didn't have
the plumbing finished to the basement (lines are in for a bathroom but
nothing is open), else it could have backed into there and been a real
mess. And man, if that had happened, I would have tried to get the power
company to pay for everything that they ruined. It wasn't the only thing
they messed up that day, either - they really tore up the access road,
and the people who sold us the lot and who own the road had to get on
them to come back and fix it. Freakin' idiots...
Today's excitement is that we've had a guy running around with heavy
equipment burying our phone line. When we got the phone installed,
turned out that a line hadn't been run up here, so the guy just laid a
temporary line, and now we are getting a permanent underground line. I'm
not really clear why that wasn't done during construction like the power
line was - it kind of stinks that we're getting our yard and driveway
torn up. Oh well, I guess at least all of the yard and driveway
destruction (they had to tear them both up to fix the septic line too,
different parts of course) is happening in the same week. 
Otherwise, I feel like we're getting there. Like I told Bob, we're on
the downhill now - there is definitely a lot less left to do than we've
already done... 